SAS® Integration Technologies: Administrator's Guide (LDAP Version)

Creating Channels
A channel is a topic or identifier that acts as a conduit for related information. The channel carries the information
from the publishers who created it to the subscribers who want it.
Channels have a name, a description, a subject, key words, reference keys, and archive paths associated with them.
This information is used by search facilities in the subscription manager to help users locate channels that are of
interest to them and are also used in the administrator application to locate specific channels for administration
purposes. Channels will also have subscribers (including subscriber groups) associated with them.
Each association of a subscriber to a channel is a subscription. A subscription enables the information that is published
to a channel to be delivered to the interested (subscribed) subscribers. Note that, although you can associate a group to
a channel, only the members of the group that are also (and separately) identified as subscribers will receive the
published content.
Administrators should create a channel for each distinct topic or audience. For instance, users of a particular
application may want a channel for discussion and data exchange, while the programmers of that application may
want another channel to discuss technical problems and future enhancements. Although the topic is the same
application, the discussion and data exchanged will be very different, so two separate channels would probably best
serve the needs of the two groups of users.
The SAS Integration Technologies Administrator provides a graphical user interface that allows you to create a
channel object with the specified attributes on the LDAP server. For general instructions, see Using IT Administrator.
To create a new channel using IT Administrator:
1. Open IT Administrator.
2. Select Publish Framework in the Manager Bar.
3. Select the Channels folder in the tree view.
4. Click the New button ( ). A dialog box appears requesting property information for the new channel.
5. Enter the name, description, and subject of the channel.
Channel names must be unique, and are limited to 40 characters. They cannot contain a comma (,) or a
forward slash (/).
Users that publish information and users that receive information may later search for these items. Therefore,
meaningful and concise entries are important. In particular, the channel should have a meaningful name so
that users of the subscription manager can easily discern the type of information that will be distributed via
that channel.
For example
Name: Conversion Tool Users
Description: User discussion of the conversion tool
Subject: sgml2html
6. Add subscribers to the channel from the Subscribers tab by selecting the Add button and selecting the
subscribers and groups from the Add Subscribers window. If you add a group as a subscriber to a channel,
make sure that every member of the group is also defined as a subscriber. Group members that are not defined
as subscribers will not receive content.
Creating Channels 212